My daddy

 

You tucked me in, turned out the light
Kept me safe and sound at night
Little girls depend on things like that

Brushed my teeth and combed my hair
Had to drive me everywhere
You were always there when I looked back

~Miley Cyrus "Butterfly fly away" lyrics~

 I find that it never rains but pours...
It has been an unusually good week with Samuel but with my dad not so much.
I have seen him twice this week and both times he was not in good moods.
He was fairly grouchy -- which involves him not only NOT talking to me (which is not a normally big endeavour to begin with) but the look starts and continues for a while (most of the visit). The look is one that says "what the heck is wrong with you!? Get out of my face!" I am being VERY generous here in what I feel the look says to me but I cant even bring myself to type out what I feel he is thinking when he looks at me with this look. He was also in a continual yelling mode... which means he will start with "I love you." that with a fast graduation makes it to "I LOVE YOU!!!!" yelling but the look says anything BUT I love you. He will start this and it can continue for anywhere from one or 2 times to a full out 10-15 minute full scale yell fest.
Then the tremors (some people in the medical profession call them seizures but not really) can start.
Some days visiting with dad is great -- especially if Dennis is there. Dad seems to relate better with him. Dennis and my dad had met maybe half a dozen times after we were married (and about 3 days BEFORE we were married) -- and yet my dad will laugh, sing and talk with Dennis. My dad was at Dennis' wedding but not mine -- sometimes I tease Dennis about his first wife, and hope that she left him money! lol
My dad rarely calls me Jodi -- I am usually some other female from his life, most times a sister, but never my mom - Debbi(whom I look a lot like).
He never calls Hannah Jodi either...(who looks a lot like me when I was her age...)
It is very odd...
The whole thing...
It hurts some days when he doesn't know me or when I tell him something about our past together he will deny it.
But my dad's 'accident' is what helped me (and still does on  daily basis) get  through everything that we have had to do with Sam and with some things I have to deal with with Dennis too.
He is one end of a spectrum and they are at the other end.
My dad was my daddy
He was my biggest fan
He was my greatest friend
He was who I talked to 3x's a week
He would call me during the day to tell me a joke while he was on lunch break at work
We would talk for hours on a Sunday afternoon on the phone
He had huge flaws -- but don't we all
He had big problems -- who doesn't
I know that not all little girls used to think of their dad's as their knights in shining armour but I did
He was a truck driver, so he was away --a lot --  most of the time actually
He may not have been the greatest husband but
He was still my daddy
and
I
miss
him...
That darn ambiguous loss thing -- he is here physically but mentally my dad is not there anymore...
and I MISS HIM!
I have dreamt about him and talked to him in my dreams but when I wake up I don't remember his voice.
I have tonnes of pictures of him but some days I can't remember what he looked like.
It hurts too that my kids will never get to know my dad's wicked sense of humour, or his generousity, or his sense of fashion, his pride for his family
My kids will never get to ride with papa in a truck or on his motorcycle
They will only ever know him as the papa in the wheelchair that you have to be careful that you tell him what you are doing when you are around him or else he can be startled and start to yell or have a tremor.
He is the guy that you don't just hold his hand or he wants to bite yours.
He is the guy that might know your name today almost always with a bit of prompting
I just miss my dad and after the last few visits I have had with him it just makes me miss him more.